I started my search at from the Rails wiki site : http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsWebHosts which gave a huge list of options, so I tried to narrow down my requirements ….

• under £120 per year - ie very cheap !
• unlimited mysql databases
• unlimited domains
• support for latest versions of Ruby and the Rails framework
• ssh access to cron etc
• good support
• + php and as much else as possible !

When I first started out with RoR my test site was www.golfcaddi.com - to be fair theybe been pretty good, about 40 quid a year and they manage Rails through cpanel so very easy. In the early days I had a few problems with site staying up but recently it has been pretty reliable.

I then found uk2.net and thought that looked a pretty good deal to host my new Ruby on Rails empire, but they were absolutely shocking, not sure if things have moved on but it took me the best part of 2 months (well over your money back time limit) to get to speak to someone who could confirm they didnt actually support RoR !

I then decide to go across the pnd and gave dreamhost a go. It started well but soon ran into severe performance issues … .im not sure where the problem was but the support and communtiy couldnt help me out so I decided to move on…..

I finally moved on to Site5, and im still there. It seems pretty good (and cheap !) ive been able to do everything I wanted to do, the support and forums are top notch helping me get round all sorts of issues. Im not 100% satisifed with speed of sites but at the moment its not an issue, when im ready to step up to the next level of hosting it might become problematic….

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress has all the information you need to know, the basic process is:

• download wordpress (http://wordpress.org/download/
• create a database
• rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php and edit the database details
• upload all the files to the desired location on your website
• go to wp-admin/install.php to do the installation
  

Thats it !

I didnt really like the default template so I went and had a look round at all the free templates and settled on one provided by http://themeshaper.com/. The install was again extermley trivial :

• download the theme
• upload it to the wp-content\themes folder
• go to the admin menu and select design and switch style

So easy !

Ill have a go at customising the template at some point but for the time being I am going to try and produce some content !